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Rome, May 2006
During the final stages of writing this book, I visited the Roman Forum.
It was a very hot day in early summer, but I chose to make the climb up
to the Capitoline hill along the route of the ancient road. It was this way
that triumphing generals must have traveled on the last stretch of the
procession that would end at the Temple of Jupiter. All sorts of images
came into my mind: the porters heaving up the treasures of conquest;
the noisy animals on their way to sacrificial death; the frightened or
proudly unrepentant captives; the puzzled, hot, but enthusiastic specta-
tors; the lurid paintings of enemy casualties; the jeering troops; the gen-
eral himself, aching though he must have been by this point, basking in
his finest moment of glory—or, alternatively, disguising his embarrass-
ment at the low turn-out, the frankly unimpressive haul of booty, the
sauciness of the soldiers’ songs, or that humiliating impasse with the elephants.
As I climbed higher rather more subversive thoughts took over. The
gradient seemed very steep; the paving slabs (even if not the original,
then a close match) were slippery, uneven, and treacherous. Could we
really imagine the procession of Pompey in 61 bce safety negotiating its
way up this, or something like it? At the very least the chariot would
need some burly men lending a shoulder to prevent it (or the general)
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falling catastrophically backwards. And why do we never hear of those
piles of precious tableware simply falling off the fercula on which they
were being carted? Why are there no stories of the captured trophies
ending up in the gutter? That, after all, is what notoriously happened in
the sedate streets of London to part of the ceremonial crown balanced
on the coffin of George V at his funeral in 1936. Why not in Rome? Per-
haps, I reflected, the sternest test for those of us who want to understand
antiquity is to learn how to resist taking literally the imaginative con-
structions and reconstructions of ancient writers themselves—while still
remaining alert to what they are saying about their world.
As I came back down the hill into the Forum, I passed a party of Eng-
lish schoolchildren listening, surprisingly attentively, to a tourist guide.
She was telling them about the triumphal procession and how it had
passed by just where they were standing. She conjured up with tremen-
dous verve the extravagance and excitement and oddity of the occasion,
before explaining that it had a very serious purpose indeed. For when
the Roman armies came home from their great victories, they were pol-
luted with “blood guilt” from the deaths they had caused, and they
had to be purified. That is what the triumph was for. The children ap-
peared very happy with this nicely gory and slightly exotic story, and
moved on to inspect the Temple of Saturn. My own reactions were more
ambivalent.
I too had begun my encounter with the triumph wanting to know, to
put it at its simplest, what it was for. Why on earth did the Romans do
it? Why did they invest such time, energy, and expense in this cere-
mony? Why? Theories abound, ancient and modern, ingenious and ba-
nal. A celebration of, or thank-offering for, victory. A reincorporation of
the general and his troops back into the civilian community. A spectacu-
lar demonstration (and justification) of Rome’s imperialist enterprise. A
reaffirmation of Roman militaristic values. A religious fulfillment of the
vows made to the gods at the start of the campaign. A complex negotia-
tion of “symbolic capital” between successful general and the senate.
The theory of purification, with a pedigree that goes back to Festus and
Masurius Sabinus, is just one among many.
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333
Almost ten years on, I am far from convinced that the “Why?” ques-
tion is the most useful one to ask. My anxieties partly reflect the objec-
tions often raised to purposive or functional explanations of ritual or
cultural practice. They fail to engage with the complicated, multifari-
ous, personal, and partisan agendas that underlie any mass celebration.
The triumph could be no more or less accurately defined as a ritual of
purification than Christmas could be defined as a celebration of the
birth of Jesus (leaving out the gift exchange, the reindeers, the snow, the
conspicuous consumption, the trees). They also risk turning some gen-
eral cultural truth into a specific explanation. The triumph, for example,
may well have had a role in the complicated trade-offs in Rome between
individual prestige and the interests of the communality. But was not
that the case with almost every form of public ritual?
More to the point, I have come to read the Roman triumph in a sense
that goes far beyond its role as a procession through the streets. Of
course it was that. But it was also a cultural idea, a “ritual in ink,” a trope
of power, a metaphor of love, a thorn in the side, a world view, a danger-
ous hyperbole, a marker of time, of change, and continuity. “Why?”
questions do not reach the heart of those issues. It is more pressing to
understand how those meanings, connections, and reformulations are
generated and sustained.
I could not blame the children for lapping up so eagerly the explana-
tion of their guide. But as I watched and listened, I fancied intervening
to tell them that it was not so simple: that there was much more to a tri-
umph than a ceremony of purification; that we do not really know if
“blood guilt” ever worried the Romans at all (and if it did, how was it
dealt with when a triumph was not celebrated?); that complex ritual and
social institutions could not really be reduced to such a simple formula.
In the event, I did not spoil their day. I have inscribed the case as
powerfully as I can in this book.